


borderline

by wbtrashking (fan_nerd)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Demisexual Character, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Relationship Status: It’s complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-08 11:10:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12863244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fan_nerd/pseuds/wbtrashking
Summary: “Let me make one thing clear,” Oikawa says. “I don’t like you.”Yesterday evening, Ushijima had made sure Oikawa had been completely sober before taking him up on the offer to fool around with him. Oikawa had taken the lead every step of the way, his voice cloying, his tone taunting. Even when Oikawa had pressed close, sweat dripping from his skin, Ushijima had not been entirely sure why Oikawa had come to him for release in the first place.Now, he thinks that Oikawa had come to him out of spite.“Okay,” Ushijima finally replies, his tone flat.Auburn eyes narrow further at that. “That’s all you have to say?”Oikawa has never said one nice thing to him in all of the years Ushijima has known him, and thus, he answers, “You’ve never liked me.”





	borderline

**Author's Note:**

> hahaha laughs into the sunset. im sorry. im usually way too soft for this. uvu;; enjoy! ♥

Oikawa is many things.

Brilliant, for one; both on the court and off of it, his mind is as sharp as a cut diamond. Observant, for another; players on the team and their opponents alike agree that he picks up everything, to the point that his powers of observance become unnerving.

He is also incredibly driven, hard-working to the point of stupidity, and equally, unequivocally fueled by bitterness.

Oikawa turns heads, makes friends and enemies as easily as he breathes, and that same charisma oozes from his pores as he corners Ushijima the morning after the setter sleeps with him. His voice is dangerously low as he lifts his index finger to the taller man’s chest and pokes it into his sternum.

“Let me make one thing clear,” Oikawa says. “I don’t like you.”

Yesterday evening, Ushijima had made sure Oikawa had been completely sober before taking him up on the offer to fool around. Oikawa had taken the lead every step of the way, his voice cloying, his tone taunting. Even when Oikawa had pressed close, sweat dripping from his skin, Ushijima had not been entirely sure why Oikawa had come to him for release in the first place.

Now, he thinks that Oikawa had come to him out of spite.

“Okay,” Ushijima finally replies, his tone flat.

Auburn eyes narrow further at that. “That’s all you have to say?”

Oikawa has never said one nice thing to him in all of the years Ushijima has known him, and thus, he answers, “You’ve never liked me.”

That part, Ushijima has never minded, and he still doesn’t care, to be truthful. He’s fine with Oikawa Tooru making him the object of some unfathomable revenge project, as long as he’s not hurting anyone. If sleeping with his age-old rival will help Oikawa’s tosses become more precise, then Ushijima is more than willing to continue offering his body and bed to Oikawa.

However, this response is apparently  _not_ what Oikawa wants to hear, so he turns up his chin and gives Ushijima a look like the taller man is dirt under his shoe. He is, in fact, so displeased that he turns on his heel and struts out of the locker room, and, although he performs admirably at practice, he says _nothing_ to Ushijima for the rest of the week.

 

//

 

Oikawa reappears on Ushijima’s doorstep.

After weeks of grueling training, many compliments from the head coach, and dozens of fan letters received, Oikawa smirks with overconfidence. He practically glows when he’s this heady.

Ushijima wishes he had a proper name for the way it makes him feel, seeing Oikawa alone like this in his apartment. For now, he settles with wary. Anxious. Eager. There are mixed emotions, but all of them, _whatever_ they are, make his blood burn hot in his veins.

Ushijima does not particularly care for kissing, or sex, or anything affiliated with romantic relationships. Generally, such things make him uncomfortable. Oikawa, however, is comfortable in his own skin, fluid, and flexible. More than all of that, he takes what he wants with no questions asked, and Ushijima is not—has never been—inclined to stop him.

Oikawa brings lube and condoms and asks for consent, because he is, underneath his layers of snark and sass, a sensitive and respectful person. He pries deeply into Ushijima and breathes out small chuckles. Ushijima thinks that Oikawa is objectively beautiful all of the time, but when they’re like this, he is _exceptionally_ stunning. When he stares at Oikawa for too long, the shorter man chides him for noticing.

“I know I’m lovely, Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa hums, “but you need to relax. I can’t move if you’re clamping around me so tightly.”

When they’re finished, have cleaned up and are lying down, Oikawa blatantly refuses to curl up beside Ushijima, though Ushijima has insisted that it will keep the setter from falling off of the narrow mattress.

“Will you stay for breakfast in the morning?” Ushijima asks because he wants to know. He wouldn’t mind Oikawa’s company, but he’s received the same answer every time he’s asked before. He has no reason to believe it will be different now.

“No,” Oikawa replies, and Ushijima is unsurprised.

 

//

 

Their college volleyball team dominates the competition. It’s really nothing new for either of them.

Ushijima, who has played for Japan’s Under-19 team, and had won nationals with his middle school and high school teams several years in a row, relishes in each smooth win, as though victory has always been the only option. Oikawa, similarly, has only seen loss at the hands of Ushijima and Kageyama’s teams, and he basks in the screams, yells, and high-fives after every official game.

The only thing that’s new is the way Oikawa’s eyes turn a little sad and vacant when he turns to his right side. Iwaizumi continues to play volleyball, and he’s come to Tokyo as well, but the two of them had wound up at different colleges through a stroke of cruel fate. On nights when he’s especially lonely, Oikawa will sneak away from the team and call him, his voice low and reedy.

Ushijima thinks that Oikawa, when he is sincere and morose, is, in a way, more attractive than he is when he smiles at the girls who scream for him and ask to take pictures together. His face grows soft, his eyes close, and his pallor is a little muted. It can be frightening, when Oikawa is this quiet, but Ushijima has grown to appreciate these moments.

When he returns to the court for more practice after-hours, side-by-side next to his compulsory school rival, he scoffs. He glares at Ushijima, pounds a few of the hardest serves he can manage into the court, and leaves the gym when he’s sweaty and exhausted.

Ushijima cleans up behind him on those days without a word.

 

//

  

One night, when Oikawa comes over to Ushijima’s apartment for their semi-regular ritual, Ushijima asks him a question. “Why do you continue to do this with me, if you do not like me?”

Ushijima had been raised in a reserved, quiet family. His parents had once been coupled through an arranged marriage, but said marriage had fallen apart. He imagines that the past frustration his mother and grandmother had had with him for being his being born left-handed would be replaced by a new hurt. He can never tell them that instead of waiting for them to set him up with some nice girl and start a family with her, he is sleeping with his teammate, and he can’t even defend himself by saying that he’s doing it out of love.

Oikawa takes a long time to answer. He waits so long that Ushijima is certain that he _won’t_ answer the question, and then, right when he’s ready to give up and go to sleep, the setter replies.

“Familiarity, probably,” Oikawa hums, his presence completely unavoidable when they’re this close. “If you hated this, you’d tell me. I know you like the way I look, if nothing else.”

Ushijima has a lot of things he wants to say to that, but he’s not fantastic with words. What comes out is, “You are unarguably the most accurate setter I’ve played with.”

Oikawa laughs bitterly. “That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? You _admire_ me, or whatever. Well, tough shit, because I’ll probably never like you.” Ushijima is unfazed by this comment. Oikawa tells him this constantly—it isn’t like he could forget. “But I’m terrible to you, and _for_ you, and you let me in anyways, like somebody tending to a wounded animal that’s bitten you a thousand times. Why do _you_ let me do this?”

The taller man thinks about the answer for a long time. Once his thoughts are clear, he says, “I don’t particularly have any reason to refuse.”

This reply forces a bark of laughter from Oikawa’s throat. He laughs until he sounds more like he’s crying, and then, in a tone so quiet that Ushijima nearly doesn’t hear him, Oikawa murmurs, “Right. Of _course_.”

 

//

 

Tendou and Ushijima meet up for lunch twice a week, and the chatty redhead is as flamboyant and ridiculous as always. Part of Tendou’s charm, Ushijima thinks, is his ability to bulldoze through the silence and glue himself to Ushijima’s side, despite the fact that Ushijima’s not a good conversationalist.

He also, much like Oikawa, observes things a bit too well, though Tendou is decidedly kinder about pointing them out.

“Wakatoshi-kun,” he sing-songs, “are you still sleeping with that setter from Aoba Johsai?”

“Hmm.” Ushijima answers in an affirmative hum, flipping through pages of a sports magazine and fervently noting the tips on how to get better workouts.

“That’s dangerous, you know,” Tendou muses. “Oikawa’s going to break your heart someday.”

“I don’t love him, and he certainly has no great affection for me.”

Deep brown eyes narrow and Tendou smiles in his impish way. “That’s the problem, Wakatoshi-kun. You’re usually so stalwart and stern, so people think you don’t have feelings, and they treat you like you’re a robot. But really, your passion burns slowly underneath the surface. I’m sure that’s why Oikawa keeps this game up. One day, you’re going to realize that you’ve fallen for him, and fallen hard, and then he’s going to ruin you.”

Ushijima lingers on that thought for quite some time. Nobody knows him quite so well as Tendou does. He’s accepted Ushijima and all of his brusque social mishaps breezily and happily for several years. It’s worth taking his opinion into account, because Ushijima knows that Tendou has a point and he cares for his wellbeing.

 

//

 

Oikawa flops onto the mattress fully naked, fanning himself with one hand. “It’s getting too hot for this.”

Ushijima rolls to the side, intending to get up. “I could adjust the air conditioning.”

A tight grip at his wrist stops him from moving. Oikawa’s palms are cooler than Ushijima’s own skin, and this always makes Ushijima pause. “Do you ever stop and think that maybe—just _maybe_ —you should stop obediently doing _everything_ that you think I need you to do for me?”

As always, Oikawa says a lot of things, with a lot of emphasis on the words, and the nuances are lost on Ushijima. “I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that comment. You said it was hot – would you prefer that I leave the temperature up too high for your comfort?”

Oikawa’s lips twist in a snide scowl and his eyes narrow. “You’re always way too serious, Ushiwaka-chan,” he says, sitting up in a swift motion and releasing Ushijima. He moves to throw on the clothes he’d shed half an hour ago.

“Where are you going?” Ushijima has grown accustomed to the weight of Oikawa against his chest on these nights, so to see him making motions to leave so soon throws him just a bit off-guard.

“Home,” Oikawa tosses back, offering Ushijima a downright beatific smile over his shoulder. “You know, the place where I usually sleep and I don’t have to see you for a few hours. A marvelous vocabulary word, I assure you.”

“Why are you going home now?”

Oikawa puts one hand on his hip after he shrugs on his shirt. “Why do you expect me to stay?”

Ushijima does not have an immediate answer to the question. He spends so long thinking up a proper response that Oikawa has flitted out of the door and disappeared before he can say anything at all.

 

//

 

The moment Oikawa calls Iwaizumi, the darker-haired man sighs. _“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”_

The setter puts his hand against his face and tries very hard to hold back furious tears. “I know.”

It’s a conversation they’ve had at least twenty times since the first week of college.

 

//

 

The first day of Ushijima and Oikawa’s sophomore year of college, Oikawa pulls the spiker aside, and softly declares, “We’re done.” He says it after practice is finished, after he and Ushijima have spent time honing tosses and spikes, and after the words have left his mouth, he picks up the errant balls on the court and rolls up the net by himself.

Ushijima is stunned silent. He’s typically quiet, of course, but the surprise coursing through his veins is new and uncomfortable. It makes him want to say and do things that he usually wouldn’t.

 _He’ll break you,_ Tendou’s voice in Ushijima’s memory echoes.

Ushijima does not consider himself broken, but for the first time in a long time, he feels somewhat defeated.

It’s strange, he thinks, that Oikawa would earn his win against Ushijima when they’re finally playing for the same team.

 

//

  

It takes two weeks of Oikawa pointedly acting out every part of his routine with the same cheery smile before Ushijima decides that he wants an explanation. A large part of his quietly bubbling frustration is that Oikawa had dropped the news on him without even the barest hint of a reason or an excuse.

Furthermore, Oikawa looks exhausted, though he’s acting outwardly relieved. Ushijima had grown used to Oikawa lurking on his doorstep several nights a week, and taking measures to make sure Oikawa had slept—and slept _well_ —on those days. He wonders if Oikawa has slept more than twenty minutes at a time since he ended their arrangement.

“Oikawa,” Ushijima says at the beginning of practice, catching Oikawa’s auburn eyes and keeping his tone steady, “Stay to work on serves with me tonight.”

It’s been two weeks since they’ve been truly alone. Though their teammates are whistling and poking fun at them for staying after _yet again_ , Ushijima doesn’t care.

He only cares about what Oikawa is going to say to him once they’re alone.

Oikawa turns up his chin and makes a blatant noise of disgust, but he doesn’t say no.

 

//

 

“I already know what you’re going to say.” Oikawa’s voice is flat and carefully devoid of inflection. He pulls his arms back into his beautiful, graceful jump-serve and launches the ball across the net with a dangerous amount of force. It lands in-bounds, if only barely, and Ushijima finds himself staring at the ball as it rolls to a stop on the other side of the court. “The reason I stopped coming by to have sex with you was because it wasn’t a healthy relationship for either of us. You don’t even _like_ me, anyways, so I’m not sure why you want to have a discussion about it.”

Ushijima has often been reminded to mind his tongue. He’s been told a hundred times to wait a moment before saying _exactly_ what’s on his mind, but he finds that he does not have the patience to do so right now. “What do you mean, when you say it was unhealthy?”

Oikawa grips a volleyball tightly in his left hand. “Insensible, poorly balanced, and harmful. That’s what the word _unhealthy_ means, Ushiwaka-chan.”

“In what way was it poorly balanced?”

Auburn eyes scream bloody murder at Ushijima, but Oikawa’s body language is silent. The heavy air between them probably shouldn’t make the wing spiker’s skin prickle with excitement.

“Do you think,” Oikawa starts, lips curled into a snarl, “that I’m supposed to do _everything?_ Do you think that I’m supposed to read your mind, and figure out whether you actually _care_ if I show up to your place or not? Because I can’t, and I won’t. You won’t tell me what’s on your mind, even when I’m having sex with you, and you want me to keep crawling back to you like some _idiot_ when I know things aren’t going anywhere?”

The torrent of questions swarms Ushijima’s mind. Before he can process all of them, or say a word in response, Oikawa jabs him sharply in the chest. The sensation _burns_.

“You’ve never liked _me_. You drive me _absolutely_ bat-shit insane, and the _only_ two things I can figure out that you think about me in that one-track mind of yours, are that you _must_ enjoy having sex with me a little bit, because you are totally uninterested in anybody else giving you the time of day, and that you’ve been dying to play volleyball with me since we were twelve.” Oikawa laughs bitterly when he finally retracts his hand, curling fists at his side. “You never seemed to respect my fucking choices for school until I came here, and now that we play on the same team, you won’t _talk_ to me unless I show up on your doorstep and pin you down on the mattress. So, I’m done. This whole rivals-with-benefits thing is _over_.”

Oikawa leaves so quickly that the air swirls around him for a moment.

Ushijima, for the second time that month, is stunned silent.

 

//

  

“Oikawa is upset with me.” Ushijima says the words to Tendou softly, and his red-haired best friend openly laughs in his face.

“I gotta admit,” Tendou replies, wiping tears from his eyes, “I kinda saw this coming, but not exactly.” He puts his elbows on the table, ignoring Ushijima’s remarks about the rudeness of the gesture, and rests his chin on his hands. “I could see you falling for him from a mile away, but not that he’d fall for you, too.”

“Please explain.”

“Wakatoshi-kun,” Tendou musically draws out his name as he speaks, “When two people care about each other very much, the term for such a feeling is often called _love_. I know, I know—the information is so refreshing and startling that you’re taken off-guard.”

Ushijima pulls a sour face, which, for him, is noted by the slight twitch in his jaw and the uncertain gaze he gives Tendou. “Love?”

The redhead throws up his hands. “Alright, maybe that’s a bit too strong a word, but I think it’s pretty obvious Oikawa cares about you. Based on what you’ve told me, isn’t he just upset that _you’ve_ never made a move? You never initiate sex, ask him out, or do anything to show that you _want_ to be with him, in the way he’s obviously shown that he wants to be with you.”

The wing-spiker’s head reels, and, as always, he gets caught in the small details instead of thinking about the big picture. “Oikawa has told me multiple times that he doesn’t like me. Why would he want me to tell him that I don’t dislike _him_?”

Tendou sighs long-sufferingly. “Not everybody can be as blunt and straightforward as you, my friend. Oikawa Tooru is a contrarian, and he’s spent a third of his life being angry with you for beating him at the sport he loves. Maybe he started sleeping with you out of spite, but there’s no way he would’ve kept doing it for a _year_ if he really hated you. The biggest proof of that is what you just told me. He wouldn’t have broken up with you and said all of those things if he didn’t want the relationship to be reciprocal— _balanced_ , Wakatoshi-kun. Don’t you agree?”

Ushijima nods.

He still doesn’t understand why _Oikawa_ couldn’t have just said that instead of trying to terminate their unofficial relationship.

 

//

 

Early on a Friday morning, after a long, long jog, Ushijima pulls Oikawa aside before his first class. The shorter man usually likes to hurry back and take a quick shower before it starts, but Ushijima is unapologetic about interrupting his routine this once.

“I care for you, though I know that you may not like me,” Ushijima says. Despite how plainly the words are spoken, Oikawa looks as though Ushijima has slapped him. “I never wished for you to break our routine, or to make you feel as though I did not respect you as a person. You’re incredibly intelligent, hard-working, observant—all things that make you a renowned setter, too, but I believed that you found these attributes obvious. I’m not particularly desperate to have sex, and Tendou has informed me that I may be demisexual, but I like the way _you_ look when you have sex with me. I appreciate that we can be so intimate.”

Oikawa gapes at him the whole time he talks, and when Ushijima stops talking, he’s still a little wide-eyed. It is a mightily rare occurrence for Oikawa Tooru to have nothing to say.

After the pause becomes awkwardly lengthy, Ushijima speaks again. “Oikawa?”

Oikawa tosses his head back and laughs until he cries. Ushijima stares at him in complete silence, sweat still dripping down his calves from their run. “You’re an idiot, you know that, right?”

“My grade point average is actually quite high, though my literature professor tells me that my fiction writing leaves much to be desired.”

Oikawa snickers and smirks a bit. “Yeah. Definitely an idiot.”

Ushijima opens his mouth to ask what, exactly, Oikawa is using to quantify his intelligence, but the press of soft lips against his makes him shut up quickly. Oikawa is a ruthless kisser, and if Ushijima weren’t so sturdy, the setter might’ve knocked both of them to the ground.

He pulls back only to dig his teeth into the base of Ushijima’s neck, staying there and keeping his lips pressed to the spot until he’s certain that the mark will bruise. “I suppose I could lower myself to your level, just this once.”

Ushijima feels lighter than air when he smiles back at him, saying, “I’m taller than you,” and Oikawa bristles, rattling off insults at a rapid-fire pace in retaliation.

 

//

 

The next time Iwaizumi talks to his best friend, Oikawa is lounging on Ushijima’s mattress on a Sunday morning looking well and thoroughly spent. Unsurprisingly so—he’d gone a number of rounds with Ushijima the night before, and if the spiker doesn’t have scratches and hickeys all over his thighs in the afternoon, then Oikawa will be sorely displeased.

“Good morning, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa chimes his name lightly and Ushijima offers a quiet greeting in the background.

Iwaizumi laughs. _“I’m glad you finally got your shit together, asshole.”_

“You should’ve seen it,” Oikawa muses, knowing that Iwaizumi will appreciate the story. “Ushiwaka-chan stopped me after a run and passionately declared that he couldn’t live without me. Sixteen-year-old me would be _incredibly_ jealous.”

Iwaizumi _laughs_. Hard. Ushijima frowns. He had always thought of Iwaizumi as the more sensible of the two of them. _“Damn. Wish I had been there to record it. Besides, whaddaya mean sixteen-year-old you— **eighteen** -year-old you would’ve given yourself a medal.”_

“Damn, you’re right,” Oikawa muses, licking his lips as he glances over at Ushijima. The foreboding message of the gesture comes across loud and clear to the left-handed volleyball player. “Guess I’d better get to that.”

 _“Gross,”_ Iwaizumi chides him gently. _“Bye, nerd.”_

“Later, loser,” Oikawa replies, hanging up his phone and tossing it on the night stand before he brazenly sticks his hand between Ushijima’s legs. “Iwa-chan reminded me that I need a permanent reminder of my success.”

Ushijima gives him a half-hearted glare. “You haven’t beaten me in the number of points scored in a game or anything.”

“No,” Oikawa says easily, grinning maniacally when Ushijima draws in a tight breath and flushes hot across the cheeks. “I’ve won at something _much_ more rewarding.”

With that, he throws himself across Ushijima’s legs and makes the most of the morning.

Ushijima thinks he could get used to weekends like this, but he intelligently keeps that thought to himself.


End file.
